Customer Reviews

Secrets Of The King's Indian (Cardoza Publishing's Essential Opening Repertoire Series)

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I have one huge problem with this book and it isnt the typos or the cover its pages 41-166 (over a third of the book) titled the "Summary of the Theory". I don't know if Nunn is a close friend and Gufeld is trying to help sales of NCO, but I cannot count how many times he refers to this opening manual. When encountering certain moves (some very important) he merely recites NCO to about move 18 and says "white is better---NCO", then goes to the next move gives an alternative cites NCO 10 moves deep and says "is even--NCO". That is basically the explanation you get to critical lines, not even a why they are better, he doesnt even bother explaining the main lines, he just gives alternatives based on NCO! To be fair occasionally he recites from BCO and MCO or from lines played in previous games (of course without any explanation). And occasionally he will throw in a game which helps take up some of the space during these sloppy 120 pages, which isnt bad but he usually skips the opening thoughts. The rest of the book is OK and might be worthwhile if you have money to waste but if you get this book just skip pages 41-166. I have plenty of chess books, and this is one of the worse.

This book is well structured. A part for the history and evolution of the opening (that is seldom seen), another part for the variations, well classified but few comments on the characteristics of the systems. A third part made of specific themes related for Black and White, and a part for important games.

The only real unpleasant thing with this book is the quantity of typing errors. Surely the authors didn't revised it neither the responsible for typing was a chess player.

Ok, some people prefer to talk when their anger has faded away, but i operate differently. I bought this book one week ago, and fortunately I 'm still angry enough to want to talk.
First of all, my respect for Gufeld is unquestionable. I like the way he writes, and I love his attitude about the game. The other book of the same authors "Secrets of the Dragon" was perfect for me, since it's a book about the ideas behind the opening, and not about rigorous knowledge of the different variations.
On these grounds, I wanted to try this book too. What the hell, the same authors, similar title, I should like this book as much as the "Dragon" one, right? And indeed, the content is of the same value, although of course the king's indian is much harder to generalise on in camparison to the sicilian dragon.
Unfortunately, the similarities don't stop at the value of the content. Same front cover (showing Gufeld playing the sicilian!!), same preface by Schiller(only changing the word "dragon" to "KID"- King's Indian Defense), same back cover (where at the bottom of my copy they even forgot to change the word "dragon" to "KID", so it reads "the Dragon hall of fame" instead of "the KID hall of fame" !), same introduction to the opening.
Don't get me wrong, I 'm not saying that this book is not worth buying, it serves the same purpose that "Secrets of the dragon" served. It's a book about the ideas of the opening, and I 'm sure that it's not only me who's looking for opening books like these two. But I just wanted to warn you about the "copy-paste" method that these guys are using, so that you wouldn't be disappointed as much as I was.

As my co-reviewer correctly points out, this book, Secrets of the King's Indian, is quite similar to another book of GM Gufeld, Secrets of the Sicilian Dragon, with respect to its cover design. Like most great Grandmasters, Mr. Gufeld is more interested in chess than such materialistic matters as cover designs, etc. The text itself is quite enlightening, and should be taken as authoritative, especially given GM Gufeld's renowned successes with the KI.
It strikes me as rather strange that my co-reviewer would admit to enjoying the text and deriving benefit from it, but seeks to warn potential buyers about deficiencies in the cover design, lest they be "as dissapointed as he was." I will take the liberty of speaking for all serious chess players in saying that content is what counts, and furthermore, "you can't judge a book by its cover."